


Inexplicable

by shalako



Series: Again, but a little bit to the left [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-magical AU, Past Zelena/Gold, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-10-01 22:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20419877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shalako/pseuds/shalako
Summary: When Emma descends into the farmhouse cellar, she only knows Gold is down there because she can hear him murmuring to himself in the dark.





	Inexplicable

When Emma descends into the farmhouse cellar, she only knows Gold is down there because she can hear him murmuring to himself in the dark. She gropes around for the lightswitch and finds it near the door. It takes the lights a few seconds to flicker to life, and when they do, they’re dim.

Emma finds herself facing a large cage in the center of the room. A dirty pile of hay sits in the corner, and Gold lays on top of it, shirtless and covered in bruises. Emma recognizes him by his voice alone; his hair is cropped close to his head, and it’s now more grey than brown. He wears nothing but a torn pair of black basketball shorts, loose around his hips; always thin, he’s now emaciated, with a concerningly dark bruise across his ribs.

He gives Emma a cursory glance, then turns his head to the side.

“Just Emma,” he says to thin air.

“Gold?” Emma says. She tugs on the cage door; it rattles all along the frame, but doesn’t give, and Gold doesn’t acknowledge her. “Who are you talking to?”

“My husband,” says Gold, like that should be obvious to her. Emma raises her eyebrows; Gold is alone in the cage, and a quick glance around the cellar reveals no one hiding in the shadows. She spots a key hanging on the wall and snatches it; to her relief, it fits into the cage door. The lock clicks open.

“Your husband?” Emma asks, kneeling next to Gold on the stone floor. Gold’s eyes slide over to her, hooded and bored. This close, Gold reeks of sex, although the only person he could have fucked down here is Zelena  — the thought makes Emma feel vaguely ill.

She takes a breath and acclimates to the smell.

“Who’s your husband?” Emma asks. Gold gestures lazily to the empty space beside him.

“Archie,” he says. He lets his hand drop, and his fingertips brush against Emma’s arm on the way down. She opens her mouth to speak, but before she has the chance, Gold stiffens, like electricity is coursing through him. His hand clamps down on Emma’s arm and he tries to sit up, eyes wide. 

“You’re real,” he gasps. Emma nods and forces Gold to lay back down by putting her hands on his chest, avoiding the bruises.

“Yes,” she says. “I’m real.”

“Zelena — ”

“She’s at the county jail for now, over in Brockton,” Emma says. “We arrested her this morning. We didn’t know you were here.”

“God.” Gold goes limp against the hay, his eyes squeezed shut. His voice is faint. “You’re  _ real _ .”

There’s something about his tone that clues Emma in.

“Yup,” she says lightly. “You’ve been hallucinating?”

Eyes still closed, Gold grimaces and says, “Non-fucking-stop. You, mostly. And — ” His eyes snap open and he groans, covering his face. When he finally looks at Emma again, he’s distinctly embarrassed. “Don’t tell anyone about Archie,” he says.

Emma grins a little. “We have more important things to talk about than your imaginary relationships,” she says. She skims her hands over Gold’s ribs, checking for breaks; he winces a little, but doesn’t pull away. “You injured anywhere else?” she asks.

Wordlessly, Gold bends his right knee as much as he can  — it isn’t much. The joint is swollen and marred with old scars and new gouges going down to his ankle and up along his thigh. Emma examines them, then looks at his left leg.

“That one isn’t as bad,” Gold murmurs. It sure  _ looks  _ as bad, Emma thinks, but she supposes he would know better than she would. 

“Think you can stand, with help?” she asks.

“‘Course,” says Gold. He sits up slowly, with Emma’s arm around his shoulders for support, but he stands up faster and without any help at all, using a bar on the cage to leverage himself up. “I can walk as well,” he says before Emma can ask. “Slowly.”

He leans heavily against the wall of the cage as Emma stands. She glances around the cage before they leave, toeing through the hay. Gold has bruises on his back, lining his spine, and she guesses they’re probably from sleeping on the stone floor with such a small layer of straw between him and it.

“It’s cold out,” she says, leaving the cage. Gold follows her, his steps slow, his hands never leaving the bars for more than a second.

“It’s cold in here,” he shrugs.

It’s true; it’s cold enough that even with her coat on, Emma is shivering. Gold isn’t, though.

“I mean, it’s snowing,” she says. “Do you have anymore clothes?”

He takes his first wobbly step out of reach of the bars. “No.”

“Upstairs, maybe?” Emma asks.

“No.”

She looks down at his bare feet and imagines them sunk deep into the snow. “Shoes?” she asks. Gold looks at her wearily.

“I’ll manage,” he says, voice soft. Emma hesitates, then shrugs off her coat and hands it to him.

“At least take this.”

He looks like he wants to argue, but he takes the jacket and shrugs it on. They’re the same height but it looks sickeningly large on him; the sight makes Emma’s stomach twist.

“Okay?” she says.

“Okay.”

She leads him to the stairs. “Let’s go, then.”

* * *

Gold faints as soon as they enter the emergency room, and Emma barely manages to catch him. She bends her knees and then stands with Gold draped awkwardly over her shoulder  — a moment later, the nurses take him away, and Emma spends the next hour occupied with a doctor who wants to know everything she can tell him about Gold.

When all is said and done, she’s led to a private room on the fourth floor. Gold’s bed is hidden by a ring of dark blue curtains, and she can hear him whispering to the nurse as he changes out of the torn basketball shorts and into scrubs. 

Emma retreats into the hall and makes a quick phone call. When the nurse leaves ten minutes later, Emma goes in. She finds Gold lying down on top of the blankets with a hand over his ribs and brown iodine stains on his face from when they wiped the blood off him. He’s wearing short-sleeved, mint-green scrubs that look sort of like summertime pajamas.

Gold grimaces at her. He rubs his chest, winces, and peels an electrode off his skin.

“They’ve run every test imaginable,” he grumbles. “In case she gave me rabies, I suppose.”

Emma shrugs in response and takes a seat next to Gold’s bed. “You mind if I ask you some questions?”

Gold makes a face. “Not like I can stop you.”

Having expected a comment like that, Emma just pulls out her notebook and gets to work.

“You were reported missing on August third, two years ago,” she says. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Gold looks at her, eyebrows furrowed. “Who reported me missing?”

“Your employee, Mr. Dove,” Emma says. “He said he went to check on you because you weren’t answering his texts. Found the door open and your car in the driveway, but you weren’t inside.”

“Hm,” Gold says. He struggles into a sitting position with a great deal of wincing. Once he’s up, he clutches his ribs with one hand and grabs a folded blanket at the foot of the bed with another. “I was being stalked,” he says. “I mentioned it to no one, including Dove. I kept seeing Zelena lurking outside my house, sometimes at night, but I didn’t know who she was at the time.” He shakes the blanket out and drapes it over his legs. “I came home one night and she was waiting for me, in the bedroom. I don’t know how she got in. I was downstairs for over an hour before I went up and found her.”

He lays one hand against his right knee. “She kicked me, here, where I’d been injured before, and I think she kicked me in the head after. I’m not sure. The next thing I recall is waking up in that cage.”

“And you’ve been in that cage the entire time?” Emma asks. “Did she ever let you out?”

For a while, Gold doesn’t speak.

“Occasionally,” he says, his voice flat. “She let me out to shower in the restroom upstairs. Downstairs, there was just a toilet. She let me shower, then she’d take me to her bedroom for a while, and then I’d be escorted back to the cellar, to the cage.”

“To the bedroom for what purpose?” Emma says. She’s sure she already knows, and if this wasn’t an official investigation, she would never dream of asking.

“For sex,” says Gold.

“This only happened in the bedroom upstairs?”

Gold hesitates, biting his lip. Eventually, he says, “No. But it was of a different nature from what happened in the cage.”

“Alright,” Emma says. She pauses to mark it all down and hopes that later she’ll be able to read her own handwriting. “What was the difference?”

Gold takes a moment, apparently putting his thoughts in order before he speaks. “If she brought me to the bedroom,” he says, “it meant she wanted to pretend I was her husband, or we were strangers who met on a date. It was like a roleplay scenario, but she didn’t set any rules, just expected me to act a certain way. I had to seem willing, and eager, and she tried to act less controlling in return. But if it was in the cage, she didn’t feel obligated to pretend any of it was nice, or …” He gestures futilely for a moment. Finally, he breaks eye contact with Emma and says, “Consensual.”

Emma nods. She and Gold talk for nearly an hour after that. Reluctantly, he answers her questions about everything  — how much Zelena starved him, how often she hurt him and where. Though he pauses frequently, he never loses composure, even for a second.

No, that comes later.

When they’re done, Emma thanks him for his time and leaves the room. She makes another call, this time to her colleagues at the county jail, and gives them a rundown on everything Gold has said to her. In the morning, she’ll type up her notes and send them over officially.

Gold rests in his room  — perhaps sleeping, perhaps watching TV. Emma doesn’t bother him; she waits in the hall until his next visitor arrives.

Archie Hopper, looking flummoxed, comes over twenty minutes later, escorted by a nurse. Emma raises her eyebrow at the gifts he’s carrying  — a small bouquet of flowers and a larger teddy bear with pastel blue fur and the words ‘It’s A Boy!’ embroidered on its belly.

He spots her and hurries over. “Emma,” he says softly. “Sorry I took so long. I didn’t understand your message at first, I thought it must be a prank.”

“It’s fine,” says Emma. She takes Archie by the elbow and leads him further down the hall so Gold can’t hear them, pretending not to see the questioning look he shoots her. When they’re far enough away, she glances over her shoulder and then says, “Look, there’s a reason I called you.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure,” Archie says quickly. “I can’t imagine what he’s gone through. The nurse said he already spoke to a psychiatrist, but if you want me to — ”

“No,” says Emma, shaking her hand. “I mean, yeah, I’m sure he’s, uh, traumatized as all hell, but that’s not what I meant.”

Archie’s eyebrows furrow, his mouth hanging open slightly as if he wants to interrupt her again. But he doesn’t. Emma scratches the back of her neck and sighs.

“He thought I was a hallucination when I went into the cellar and found him,” she says. “He’s been down there for two straight years with like, zero food, and no one to talk to or occupy his time. Like, he didn’t even have a TV or books or anything.”

Archie nods gravely, but Emma hasn’t gotten to the important part yet.

“When I got down there,” she says, hesitating, “he was hallucinating someone else, too, and he was talking to them. Having a full-on conversation. Barely even acknowledged me, cuz he didn’t think I was real, and the other imaginary person was more important. I asked him who he’s talking to, and he said ‘My friend.’”

Archie blinks, clearly confused, but doesn’t say anything. Emma can’t help blushing when she lies  — or, as she prefers to think of it, edits Gold’s words  — but she doesn’t regret it.

“And then I asked him who his friend was,” says Emma, “and he said it was you.”

Abrupt comprehension dawns on Archie’s face. He looks past Emma to Gold’s room, his eyes soft.

“The whole time, I guess he was keeping himself sane by pretending you were there,” Emma says. “So … I dunno, I thought he might wanna see you. I don’t think he’s gonna get any other visitors.”

“Yeah,” Archie whispers. He looks down at his feet, blushing a little. “God. Thanks for telling me.”

“Yeah. Don’t mention it.”

“I can’t imagine — ” Archie starts.

“I mean, really don’t mention it,” Emma says. “Don’t tell him I told you. Just  — I dunno. Pretend you have a genuine interest in his well-being or something.”

Archie looks mildly hurt at that. “I do have a genuine interest in his well-being,” he says.

“Awesome. You’ll be really convincing, then.” She pats him awkwardly on the shoulder. “I, uh, gotta get going. Thanks for coming.”

“Of course.”

She brushes past him, unable to take anymore conversation. She has to return to the farmhouse ASAP, with a camera this time, to photograph the crime scene. Not for the first time, she wishes the Storybrooke police force wasn’t so understaffed.

Behind her, Archie stands alone in the hallway, staring sadly at Gold’s name on the hospital room before him.

* * *

Archie gives himself a few minutes to work up his courage. Not for the first time, he regrets buying Gold anything from the hospital gift shop  — and not for the first time, he pushes his doubts away, telling himself firmly that Gold will appreciate the gesture, even if he pretends not to.

He takes a deep breath and pokes his head through Gold’s door, knocking on the doorframe. There’s a quick moment of panic when he thinks he’s stepped into the wrong room; the small man on the bed resembles Gold enough to make Archie look twice and realize it really is him. Gold turns his head slowly; his expression doesn’t change when he sees Archie, but his eyes flicker warily. 

“Hey,” Archie says, stepping inside. After a long pause, Gold turns his head away again and stares at the wall. Archie puts the bouquet down on the little table next to Gold’s bed and takes a seat. After a moment’s hesitation, he puts the teddy bear on the mattress, next to Gold’s arm. The fur brushes Gold’s skin and he jolts, turning to look at Archie again. This time, his eyes are wide.

“Dr. Hopper,” he barks, sounding furious. Archie starts.

“What?”

Gold’s eyebrows shoot up at Archie’s defensive tone. He leans back, and when he speaks again, the angry tone is gone.

“I didn’t …” he says, then closes his eyes and shakes his head. “You surprised me. I didn’t mean to snap.”

“It’s fine,” says Archie, feeling inordinately embarrassed himself. Glumly, Gold picks up the blue teddy bear and holds it in front of him, reading the words on its stomach. “It’s, uh, all they had,” says Archie. 

Gold still looks confused. He tries to hand the bear back to Archie, who hesitates before taking it.

“You don’t want it?” he asks. Gold blinks.

“It’s for me?”

“Yeah, of course!” Archie pushes the bear back toward Gold, who looks at it, totally baffled. “The flowers, too.”

Gold looks at the flowers on the table like he’s seeing them for the first time. Then, without glancing at Archie, he reaches over and firmly squeezes Archie’s wrist  — a gesture strangely cold and devoid of affection  — then draws away without an explanation. 

“Well, thank you,” says Gold gruffly. After a moment’s thought, he turns the bear around so its back is facing him and wraps his arms around it, maintaining a stern poker face. A small smile creeps its way onto Archie’s face. “They had me speak to a doctor already,” Gold says.

Archie’s smile disappears. “Oh, I’m not — ”

“I know,” says Gold, shooting Archie a sharp look. “If you were here for therapy, you wouldn’t bring gifts. So why are you here?”

Archie almost tells the truth, then remembers Emma’s request. He hems and haws for a moment over what to say.

“I, er, heard Emma found you,” he says eventually. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

Gold contemplates this. He suddenly looks very tired; instead of responding, he tucks his chin against his chest and hugs the teddy bear a little tighter. The hospital room is freezing, and there are goosebumps on his arms.

“No one’s ever visited me in a hospital before,” he says. Then, before Archie can say anything, he corrects himself. “Well, a divorce lawyer, but that doesn’t count.”

Archie snorts. “A divorce lawyer?”

Gold’s right leg shifts under the blankets. “After my car accident,” he says. Archie looks at him blankly, and after a moment, Gold realizes he needs to explain. “I hurt my leg in a car accident when I was still married,” he says. “Years ago. Before I moved to the States.”

“Oh,” says Archie. He can’t believe he’d forgotten that Gold walks with a cane, but he supposes two years will do that to a person. “And your wife … she …?”

“She sent her regards,” Gold says. “I was in hospital for a month and a half. Her lawyer brought me the papers a few weeks in.”

“Oh,” says Archie again. “God, I’m sorry. That sounds awful.”

Gold nods and shrugs, but he’s smiling faintly. “It was the best part of that month, really.”

Archie chuckles just as the nurse walks in. She gives Gold a wide smile and asks if he needs anything. She doesn’t acknowledge Archie at all; it’s like he isn’t there.

“A blanket, please,” Gold says. The nurse leaves, and Archie takes another close look at Gold. He’s shivering slightly, and that’s really not surprising  — it’s December, the hospital is freezing, he’s wearing short sleeves, and he only has one small, thin blanket.

Gold catches him looking. “Is your dog allowed in hospitals?” he asks.

Archie blinks, taken aback. “Er, yes, actually. He’s a trained therapy dog.”

“I thought so.”

“I can bring him tomorrow, if you like,” Archie offers. Gold flushes at that and looks away, and although Archie isn’t sure why, this makes him flush, too. “Um, and I can bring you some other things, if you want. Anything you need.”

The nurse breezes back into the room, armed with three folded blankets. She puts the top two on Gold’s lap and wraps the third around his shoulders without asking if he wants it there first. Gold jumps at the touch of it, then gently pulls it closer to him.

“It’s heated,” he whispers to Archie when the nurse leaves. Archie puts his hand on Gold’s shoulder and feels how warm the blanket is.

“That’s nice of her,” he says. Gold leans into Archie’s touch and looks so sad that Archie doesn’t pull away. “Er, can you think of anything you want me to bring?”

“No,” says Gold. His eyes fall closed.

“A sweater?” Archie suggests. “Some books? Crosswords?”

Reluctantly, Gold opens his eyes again. “Yes,” he says. “That would be nice. But not crosswords. Sudoku, if you’re going to bring anything.”

“A sweater, books, and sudoku,” Archie confirms. “Anything in particular you’re interested in?”

There’s a long pause. Gold wrinkles his nose.

“Has Colm  Tóibín  written anything new while I was gone?”

“Er, probably,” Archie says. “The guy who wrote  _ Remains of the Day _ , right?”

“He wrote  _ Brooklyn _ ,” says Gold.

“Oh. Well, yeah, probably. I’ll look it up when I get home.” 

Gold nods, then looks closely at Archie. After a moment, Archie is able to decipher the expression on Gold’s face as one of suspicion.

“You’re really coming back tomorrow?” Gold asks. Archie smiles sadly.

“Of course.”

Gold’s response is immediate. “Why?”

Archie is speechless. He stammers, unable to form a single word for an embarrassingly long amount of time. “Well  — well, because I like you,” he manages eventually. Gold eyes him a while, his expression oddly sour, and finally looks away. “I’m glad you’re back,” Archie says, voice small. “I-I don’t know. I just … want to see you again, is all.”

* * *

When Emma returns to the hospital at ten a.m. the next day, Gold is fast asleep. His back is to the door and he’s curled around the pastel-blue teddy bear Archie gave him the day before. She considers waking him, then decides to let him rest  — then decides to wake him anyway, since there are no nurses around to chastise her for it. She shakes Gold by the shoulder and he cracks open one eye. It takes a long time for that eye to swivel around and look at her, and then he rolls over and sits up with a groan, still clutching the teddy bear.

“You enjoy the visit from your husband?” Emma asks.

“Shut up,” says Gold. He glares at her for about half a second before the glare is erased by a sudden, sharp anxiety. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“No, of course not,” Emma says. She plops down in the seat next to Gold’s bed “Did  _ you  _ tell him?”

“No,” says Gold, aghast at the very idea. Emma shrugs, trying to muster up some light-heartedness over the whole terrible situation.

“You should,” she says. “He has a crush on you, too. He always used to blush whenever he talked to you.”

Gold looks more affronted by this than anything else. “You’ve never seen us talking to each other,” he says.

“People talk,” Emma says. “And he’s friends with Ruby Lucas, who talks more than anyone else.”

It’s clear Gold doesn’t believe her, so Emma drops it. Gold stares down at the bear, his eyes distant as he combs his fingers through the tousled hair on its head.

“Anyway,” says Emma, clearing her throat, “I, uh, came to tell you that I found a digital camera when I was searching the farmhouse. I just … thought you’d want to know.”

Gold’s mouth twists unpleasantly. He doesn’t look at her.

“Do you … remember a camera?” asks Emma, her voice cautious.

“Of course I remember,” Gold growls. “What of it?”

“Well, we … the photos are being used as evidence. So a lot of people are looking through them. And … since it’s you … I thought — ”

“Have  _ you  _ looked through them?” Gold asks, finally turning to glare at her. Emma grimaces.

“Er, some of them,” she says. 

“Which ones?”

It’s a long time before Emma can answer. Her throat is dry, and she stares at the ground as she speaks instead of meeting Gold’s eyes.

“They were pretty recent, I think,” she said. “It was a bunch of pictures of you tied up in the cage. Hanging from the bars on top, by your hands.”

She doesn’t mention Gold’s nudity or visible injuries in the photo. She’s sure he remembers them.

“That’s all?” Gold says eventually, when the silence just keeps dragging on.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

He keeps carding his fingers through the fur on the teddy bear’s head, then realizes what he’s doing and sighs, setting it aside.

“Are you going to look at the rest?” he asks.

“Not if I can help it,” says Emma. “It’s not really my investigation. The Brockton police are handling it.”

“But you’re the one searching the house.”

Emma shrugs. “I’m the only one who lives here.”

Gold doesn’t seem particularly pleased with this answer, but he doesn’t argue. Instead, he lays back down and pulls the bear against him reflexively, like he’s already forgotten how he pushed it away a moment ago.

“You want me to go?” Emma asks, not unkindly. Gold closes his eyes.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

* * *

When the nurse leads Archie to Gold’s room the next day, Gold is curled up around the teddy bear with his back to the door. For a moment, Archie just drinks in the sight; then he shifts the books around until he’s holding them all in one hand and raps his knuckles loudly against the door frame. 

Gold rolls onto his back and cracks his eyes open. His expression doesn’t change when he catches sight of Archie, but he stretches and sits up, letting the teddy bear fall to the side.

“Brought you some gifts,” Archie says. He takes a seat next to Gold’s bed and holds up the books so Gold can see them.

“Oh,” says Gold softly. His eyes light up.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked,” says Archie, “so I tried to get one of everything, you know?”

He’s succeeded, for the most part. Gold sorts through the pile, raising his eyebrows at some of the titles.

“Toibin, obviously,” says Archie, shifting in his seat. “Since you mentioned him. And Bradbury always cheers me up, and I thought, you know  — Shirley Jackson and John Fowles, for some good classy horror, and Beagle for some humor, and obviously Agatha Christie is mystery — ”

Gold is smirking a little, but whatever he finds funny, he doesn’t comment on.

“I appreciate it,” he says. He uses a worn paperback copy of  _ Devils & Demons  _ by Rod Serling to gesture at the TV. “I’ve been going out of my mind. All they ever show is nudists frolicking through the woods.”

“Naked and Afraid?” Archie asks.

“I suppose they must be,” says Gold. He can’t fathom why Archie laughs at that.

“Well,” says Archie after a while, “I don’t suppose you’ve talked to anyone about your house yet, have you?”

Gold wrinkles his nose. He seems more interested in examining the stack of paperback books than talking about his house.

“It’s still yours, of course,” says Archie. “The utilities have been turned back on for you, so you can move in at any time. Er, once you’re released, I mean.”

Inexplicably, Gold scowls. Archie watches him, hoping that Gold will explain  — but after a few minutes wherein Gold makes eye contact with no one except the books, he realizes it’s not to be.

“Any idea when they’ll let you go?” Archie asks instead. 

He gets a surly shrug in response. “Never,” Gold says, still scowling. “They’re intent on torturing me for another two years.”

Half-smiling, Archie says, “Well, let me know when they do. I’ll cook dinner for you your first night out.”

And suddenly, just as inexplicably as when it first appeared, Gold’s scowl is gone. 

“Why would I want to have dinner with you?” he asks, without much bite. Archie doesn’t take offense to the question.

“Doesn’t matter if you want to or not,” he says. “I insist. Someone’s got to make sure you get a home-cooked meal after all this hospital food.”

_ And whatever else you’ve been forced to eat for the past two years,  _ he thinks but doesn’t say aloud. Gold considers the books a little while longer, then stacks them with their spines aligned and sets them aside. He raises an eyebrow at Archie and, without asking, takes his hand.

“It’s a deal, then?” he asks crisply, casually. Archie struggles to find words for a response. He’s too focused on Gold’s hand in his  — small and cold and fragile. Inexplicable.

“It’s a deal,” he says, though he’s not sure what he’s getting out of this deal, except the pleasure of Gold’s company. Gold nods and turns his strange grasp on Archie’s hand into a handshake, like that’s what it was always meant to be.

When he pulls away, it occurs to Archie that maybe Gold was checking to see if he was real.

“I’ll see you then,” says Gold, and he turns back to his books once again, keeping his eyes on them until Archie finally  — reluctantly  — exits the room.


End file.
